Tips on Knitting Cowls in the Round

By Kay Gardiner 11/27/16

When I say “cowls in the round,” I mean only one cowl, my beloved Honey Cowl. I have lost count of how many Honey Cowls I have knit. There is always someone who wants one, or wants another one. They are the perfect combination of style and practicality in the handknit accessory category.

There is nothing very challenging about knitting a Honey Cowl–it’s a 2-row pattern and one of those two rows is plain knitting. There are a few tricks, however, and these tricks are common to any large piece knit in the round. In making dozens of Honey Cowls, I have learned ways of handling these tricky bits, and I’m sharing them here.

Tricky Bit Number One: Casting on Hundreds of Stitches

When using a DK weight yarn for a Honey Cowl (typically MadelineTosh DK), I cast on 260 stitches (instead of the 220 prescribed by the pattern). I like a long Honey Cowl, for ease of wrapping (never too snug around the neck), and when unwrapped, to hang low enough not to be in my way. The Honey Cowl pictured here, in a lovely sportweight Camellia Fiber CompanyMerino Sport (made in your own Davidson County, Tennessee), is 300 stitches to compensate for the smaller gauge.

I cast on using the long tail cast-on but here’s the rub: how long should the tail be? No matter how much yarn I reel off for the tail, there is the chance that I’ll get 250 of those 260 stitches cast on, and run out of yarn.

One way of dealing with this is to cast on 20 stitches, and measure how much tail yarn that took, and multiply it by 13 and then measure out that much yarn. I don’t have a lot of enthusiasm for all that measuring.

Another way is to estimate: a foot of yarn for 20 stitches in worsted weight (as advised on this video for the long tail cast-on). That one also requires a fair amount of measuring (“you really want to round up”), and it’s too guessy for my liking.

A few years ago, Annie Modesitt taught me the answer. The answer is: TWO TAILS. Take two ends of the yarn you’re using, either from 2 balls of yarn, or from both the beginning and end of a center-pull ball. Using both strands held together, make a slip knot and place it on your needle. Then do the long tail cast-on exactly as normal, using the two strands. Do not count the slip knot as a stitch. When you’re done casting on, undo the slip knot and cut the “tail” strand of yarn. Now start knitting with the remaining strand of yarn. (Yes, this gives you 2 more ends to weave in. Stop whining. You’ve just been spared the agony of running out of yarn.)

It’s so easy, and so obvious once you know it. Thank you, Annie! Thank you, Julie!

Tricky Bit Number Two: Being Careful Not To Twist

Once you’ve cast on, you’re ready to cruise right into your Honey Cowl (or circular knit of choice). But there’s another obstacle to the blissed-out mindless knitting you crave: you must join all those stitches into a round without twisting them. Woe betide the knitter who is an inch (or more!) into Honey Cowl territory before realizing there is a twist in the stitches! It would be better never to have been born! (Not really. But it’s annoying.) I used to do it a lot, perhaps every third Honey Cowl. But over time, I learned to get it right. Here are some strategies:

Avoid the whole problem. Instead of joining the stitches on the first round, just knit back and forth for a few rows. The honey cowl starts with a rolled edge of stockinette. Knit that, then lay your needles on a flat surface, go all the way around checking to see that the stitches (now forming a visible rolled edge) are not twisted at any point on the round, and join them together. At the end, you can invisibly close the gap in that rolled edge with a few mattress stitches, using one of the tails that you have to weave in anyway.

Be vewwy, vewwy careful. This is the baller approach. Lay your stitches on a flat surface, as shown in the picture. Try to be in a calm and patient mood, and not on an airplane if possible. Start at one end of the cast-on and follow the stitches all the way around, nudging them into line and ensuring that they have not twisted. I do this by placing the cast-on edge on the top of the cable all the way around. When you get to the end, join the stitches, lift the needles careful off the table (so as not to jostle the stitches), and start knitting. I know, “be careful” is not a very helpful technique. But this is the way I do it. And it’s mostly successful. When it’s not successful? Then I use strategy 3.

Fix it after the first round. After the first round, lay your needles once more on a flat surface, and summon back that calm and patient mood. Repeat the procedure of going all the way around, stitch by stitch, and making sure that the stitches are not twisted. If there IS a twist, keep straightening the stitches until you’ve isolated the twist at the place where the stitches are joined, and untwist it before starting the second round. This is your last chance to fix it. But you can fix it perfectly.

Tricky Bit Number 3: Knowing When To Quit

The long version of the Honey Cowl requires two skeins of yarn. You make the cowl as wide as you like, and I like to make them as wide as my yarn will permit. As that second ball dwindles, how do you know when it’s time to stop the main pattern, and start that roll of stockinette edging? It wouldn’t be the end of the world to run out of yarn before the edging was done–you’d just have to rip the last repeat or two of the pattern and re-knit the edging, but who needs that aggravation?

To know when it’s quitting time, place a locking marker on the last round completed with the first skein. Then, count how many repeats of the pattern you’ve completed. That is how many repeats of the pattern you need to knit before starting the roll edge. (Needless to say, this logic applies to other situations where you are trying to get the most out of the yarn available.)

When you’re done, you have another Honey Cowl (or circular cowl of your choice). This is my latest, for niece Maggie (currently residing in Davidson County, Tennessee), modeled by my in-house knitwear model, who has returned in-house for a week of Fall Interruption (she calls it Fall Break). Maggie picked out the yarn herself at your own local, Craft South.

I have *never* knit a Honey Cowl. I know. I must be the only knitter in the universe to not have knit one (or to have knit Colour Affection, but I digress).
I usually try the “very careful” method with lots of success, but I’m thinking that with 260 sts on the needles that joining after a couple round is a master stroke. Thanks for the tip.

I do love that two-tailed method of casting on a lot of stitches. It is genius! I learned it several years ago from the book When Bad Things Happen to Good Knitters: An Emergency Survival Guide by Marion Edmonds and Ahza Moore. After trying it, I was so excited! I have shown it to many knitter friends and students. I still love it. It makes knitters happy!

I especially love that last picture 🙂 and let me be the first to ask: what is that pullover?
The Very Careful approach is my usual method, but for this pattern I’d do that straight back and forth and let the curly edge be extra-helpful.
A while ago I tried a cast-on that uses the live yarn. I leave just enough to thread a needle and weave in. I tried the CO once, and since then, have used it for almost every project. Can I put a YT link here? Let’s see:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTIBTm0QL6A

I love these hints. I have been using the knit straight for a few rounds and sew up later since one of my cowls became a möbius cowl because of the twisting. I will put the long tail hint into my memory box. Your website is a life saver.

Tip #1 – I’m not much of a gambler so I use a cable cast-on and never have to worry about running out of yarn before I get all my stitches on the needle. It makes a lovely smooth edge.

Tip #2 – After knitting one row and then arranging the stitches on a flat surface I attach little clothespin type clips all along the cable to keep those bad boys from twisting when I pick up my work to start knitting. Works like a charm.

Brilliant! I love the long tail cast-on tip especially. I usually wind my yarn around the needle 10 times, measure that length and then, using that length as a measure, fold the yarn counting 10-20-30 etc. until I reach my stitch number and then add a safety length for insurance. It works but with huge numbers I think your way sounds fail safe.

Apparently you have succeeded in persuading just about everyone to make a Honey Cowl; there are 22,480 projects on Ravelry as of today. And of course I just downloaded the pattern and began looking through my stash…

Did comments get lost in the transfer from ye olde website-e? I’m pretty sure I gave my two cents when this was first posted (whenever the heck that was), but there are (of course) more estimation techniques knitters can use for guessing the length of yarn needed for a long tail cast-on.

One is to wrap the yarn around your 2 needles held together. Count 1 wrap per 1 stitch needed in the cast on. (Though it may not be super fun to count 200 wraps.)

Another is to estimate that you’ll need about 3x the length of yarn for the long tail relative to the expected length of the completed cast-on edge. So if you expect the honey cowl to be 40″ around, then you’d need about 120″ of tail.

PLUS Annie Modesitt’s separate-length-of-yarn-for-long-tail suggestion can be a back-up option. If your estimation skills have you running short on yarn, THEN add an extra length for the tail and cast on from there. Bam! That way you have the 2 additional ends to weave only if you estimated wrong.

I also love the technique mentioned for long tail cast on but I would add one more thing to it. When I first tried it I didn’t work in the extra 2 ends from the slip knit as soon as possible, and then got very confused as to which side of my knitting was which! I don’t remember what the pattern was (probably involved stripes or short rows, or something visually somewhat complicated) So if you are used to seeing just one yarn end hanging down to mark the beginning of a round or a row, certain patterns will be confusing if both edges have ends. Clearly I should have realized this right away and worked in the extra ends, but instead I gave up on using this technique. So I appreciate the reminder and now will be using it a lot more.

Great tips! I do have a question for Kay. When I knit my Honey Cowl I ended up with what looks like a seam at the beginning of the round as I go from the plain row to the patterned row.
Is there any way to avoid that?

These are great tips! But-my honey cowl stalled two years ago when I realized I had made a mistake two or three rows back. I does anyone have tips for getting back to the problem to fix it? I couldn’t face tinking hundreds of stitches. I’d love to finish it.

#1. I’ve never asked understood why knitters persist in using the long tail cast-on when there are less anxiety producing alternatives. I use a cable cast-on for virtually every project I do and it works perfectly.

#2. To avoid the dreaded twist I lay the needle on the table, align all of the stitches, and then use clips that look like tiny clothespins to keep them in place while I do the join.

I don’t much bother with tricks any more, since realizing that the single yarn connecting them on the first round will still be true whether you knit a few straight rows first or not. Starting over does not bother me if I guessed wrong on the tail. For the 2-ball fans, instead of making a slipknot with both yarns, you could join them to save the extra weaving-in. Use a spit-splice or other join of your choice.